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Operation Ceasefire works to dissuade offenders from criminal lifestyles

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Updated: 8:41 AM EDT Jun 17, 2014

Baltimore City leaders are introducing new initiatives to help make neighborhoods safer, one of which provides more money for crime fighting, including an unusual approach with ex-cons.Fighting crime in Baltimore is something Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said they're working hard to do, and thanks to a crime supplemental bill passed Monday by the City Council, they are one step closer to making neighborhoods safer."This legislation will assist us in the fight on violent crime in Baltimore City by putting more resources to target repeat violent offenders and take more illegal guns off our streets," Rawlings-Blake said.One way city leaders are doing that is through an initiative called Operation Ceasefire, a tactic that tries to dissuade the worst offenders from leading a criminal lifestyle.Initiative leaders recently conducted their first group session in west Baltimore. Batts said about 30 people who were all on probation attended."The ones that really impact them -- and I've seen it time and time again -- are not when the police part comes up or the law enforcement part. It's when mothers who have lost their sons or daughters stand before these young people and tell them, 'You've killed not only my son, but you killed the living. You've killed me. You've killed my family,'" Batts said.City leaders said they've found that only a small number of people in the Western District are causing the overwhelming majority of homicides and nonfatal shootings in the city."Our research from that process determined that 0.6 percent of the population in that area accounted for over 60 percent of the homicides and 76 percent of the nonfatal shootings over the past few years," the mayor said.According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report Database, Baltimore ranks seventh out of the 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S. But that's something FBI Director James Comey said can be changed."We have to weed neighborhoods -- rip out the bad growth. That's what we do, but unless that spot that we've created is seeded with something healthy to grow, we're just going to keep weeding and keep weeding," Comey said.It's a big challenge that Comey and Rawlings-Blake said can be done in Baltimore."We're not going to stop until every neighborhood in the city is safe," Rawlings-Blake said.More funding was also allocated for police overtime in the amount of $1.2 million in order to provide more foot patrols around the city.

BALTIMORE —

Baltimore City leaders are introducing new initiatives to help make neighborhoods safer, one of which provides more money for crime fighting, including an unusual approach with ex-cons.

Fighting crime in Baltimore is something Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said they're working hard to do, and thanks to a crime supplemental bill passed Monday by the City Council, they are one step closer to making neighborhoods safer.

"This legislation will assist us in the fight on violent crime in Baltimore City by putting more resources to target repeat violent offenders and take more illegal guns off our streets," Rawlings-Blake said.

One way city leaders are doing that is through an initiative called Operation Ceasefire, a tactic that tries to dissuade the worst offenders from leading a criminal lifestyle.

Initiative leaders recently conducted their first group session in west Baltimore. Batts said about 30 people who were all on probation attended.

"The ones that really impact them -- and I've seen it time and time again -- are not when the police part comes up or the law enforcement part. It's when mothers who have lost their sons or daughters stand before these young people and tell them, 'You've killed not only my son, but you killed the living. You've killed me. You've killed my family,'" Batts said.

City leaders said they've found that only a small number of people in the Western District are causing the overwhelming majority of homicides and nonfatal shootings in the city.

"Our research from that process determined that 0.6 percent of the population in that area accounted for over 60 percent of the homicides and 76 percent of the nonfatal shootings over the past few years," the mayor said.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report Database, Baltimore ranks seventh out of the 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S. But that's something FBI Director James Comey said can be changed.

"We have to weed neighborhoods -- rip out the bad growth. That's what we do, but unless that spot that we've created is seeded with something healthy to grow, we're just going to keep weeding and keep weeding," Comey said.

It's a big challenge that Comey and Rawlings-Blake said can be done in Baltimore.

"We're not going to stop until every neighborhood in the city is safe," Rawlings-Blake said.

More funding was also allocated for police overtime in the amount of $1.2 million in order to provide more foot patrols around the city.